He is not here. He is not in this tomb; his bodily presence is removed from this his whilom resting place. St. Matthew's account is greatly condensed, and omits many details which harmonists try to fit into our text.
The attempt is not to be commended, for it really involves greater confusion, and, after all, is forced and only conjectural. For he is risen, as he said. If they had believed Christ's often-repeated announcement, they would not have come seeking the living among the dead.
(For Christ's predictions concerning his resurrection, see Matthew 12:40; Matthew 16:21; Matthew 17:23; Matthew 20:19.) On this simple, but pregnant sentence, "He is risen," depends the phenomenon of Christianity, in its origin, existence, continuance, extension, and moral power.
"Death began with woman; and to women the first announcement is made of resurrection" (Hilary, quoted by Wordsworth, in loc.). Come, see the place where the Lord lay. The angel invites them to satisfy themselves that Christ's body was no longer in its resting place.
That Jesus was designated as "the Lord," ὁ κυ ìριος, by the disciples is obvious (see John 20:18; John 21:7, etc.), but it is doubtful whether the words are genuine here, though they are found in many good manuscripts and in the Vulgate.
They are omitted by א, B, 33, etc., and by Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort in their editions. Regarding them as genuine, Bengel calls them "gloriosa appellatio," which indeed it is, for it is equivalent to "Jehovah."
Harmonists suppose that the angel was at first not seen by the women; that Mary Magdalene, observing the stone removed, at once hurried to the city to tell Peter and John; that, the rest of the women remaining, the angel made himself visible to them and bade them enter the sepulchre; and that, doing so, they beheld another angel sitting on the right side of the recess.
Thus, it is conjectured, the accounts in Mark and John may be harmonized with that in our text. (See also Westcott on John 20:1-31., where is given a provisional arrangement of the facts of the first Easter Day.